Suits you sir

I’ve decided to bite the bullet and sort out a tailored suit from the same shop where Dad got his jacket from whilst the parents were over. I headed over on Monday after work and was measured up in about five minutes with the various specifications for the suit taking about another further five minutes. There was no hanging around at all. I’m due for my first fitting after work today, and assuming all is well I’ll collect the suit on Monday. Total price is HK$2200 which works out at just under £150. I’ve never had a tailored suit before, so I’m pretty fascinated to see how the finished article turns out. Of course, once they’ve got your measurements it’s really easy to get subsequent suits and shirts created, so if all goes well I’ll probably sort out a couple more at a later date. The other alternative I’ve been told about is to take an example to Shenzhen where they’ll copy it for a lower price.

I’ve also got my Internet and TV services connected at home now. The PCCW now-tv engineer turned up at the allotted time and spent about half an hour or so connecting the phone socket up to an ADSL modem. It seems that both the Internet connection and TV signal are delivered via the same line, so it’s essentially broadband television which is a different delivery method to both VirginMedia (cable) and BSkyB (satellite) back home. No complaints so far and I do indeed seem to be subscribed to a variety of movie channels (multiple HBO channels, Star Movies, Cinemax, MGM, and TCM) as well as a lot of sports channels, and a range of entertainment channels with a variety of channels carrying American content (FX and Fox Crime) and some British content channels (BBC entertainment, BBC Lifestyle etc.). Similar to the packages I had in the UK, it means there’s an awful lot of channels carrying an awful lot of rubbish television. There also seems to be quite a lot of censorship on the channels, with only one of the HBO channels being listed as adult content and requiring the parental PIN. It seems the adult content means they can swear.

The PCCW engineer also seemed a bit bemused about trying to set up an ADSL connection from my Linux laptop rather than the expected Windows. This is obviously a worldwide experience, as NTL/VirginMedia basically offered no support whatsoever whenever you mentioned the L word. He showed me the connection working on his Windows laptop before leaving me to set up the connection under Linux. Actually, I didn’t care for connecting my laptop to the ADSL mode directly as I already have my own wireless router set up the way I want it, and as soon as he left set about connecting it. Hey presto! Within about fifteen minutes I had my wireless router up and running connected to the Internet.

I was also able to register the water service in my name for the apartment via the Internet so managed to save myself the half hour phone frustration of spelling out where I live and my name to yet another billing company. It has been a fairly productive week, as I’ve also now got sufficient salary history to apply for a credit card and get a savings bank account set up. At the end of last week I was playing for Valley C team versus the B team in a crunch match in the league. We started on 4 points to the 3 points of the B team (who had played one match less). These inter-club games are always competitive and so it proved on Friday night. However through some hard work and determination the C team played incredibly well to come through with a 3-0 victory. As you can imagine we were very quiet in victory and had an early night…

I have to admit I am looking forward to a shot of you wearing a tailored suit, guess it will look like any other picture of you ‘xcept the clothing fits rather than making you look like some childs mannequin.

Censorship – now that brings back memories. Trying to get your sweaty little mits on descent porn or even a look at some digitals baps was a journey not for the feint hearted. The number of hours I spent watching a pixelated circle almost the whole size of the screen, bouncing up and down – does not bare thinking about. And that was pay per view porn. But then you jump on the tube and can be in wan chai within minutes with a cute Thai (female) bouncing up and down on your lap. All a little confusing on the moral front.

£150 !!! I paid £400 for getting a Hong-Kong -made suit in the UK. Grrrr. Still, £400 is a lot better than £2000 from Savile Row. . . guess I’ll just have to visit your tailor too Jon. Let me know how the suit turns out. Mine looked good and was a reasonable fit, not brilliant, but ok, a bit wide around the chest. The cloth a tad on the shiny side, not particularly visible to most but I can sort of ‘feel’ if you know what I mean.